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"This COULD'VE been my favorite game of all time, but nooooooooooo....."

When the word ''RARE'' is seen in all caps, most players will first think Donkey Kong Country or Space Invaders. But I'm taken to a time in between. To the Fall of 1991. And that very memorable day then when I rented it with Rampart at the local Movie Stop. It was one those few Nintendo games that we rented frequently for a while. About once a month.

There's not really any characterization in the plot, but it does have a basic story. The Battletoad's (TMNT rip-off#6) strong guy Pimple was captured along with Princess Angelica (whom he was escorting to an emperor of another planet) by the renegade space pirate the Dark Queen and her goons. So Professor Bird sends Zitz, the smart Battletoad and Rash, the ''cool'' Battetoad to rescue them and give the Dark Queen and co. a good trashing!

The Battletoads have some very special metamorphosis powers they can fight with. They punch enemies six times, then they can make their fists triple in size for the knockout punch (or just uppercut if the enemies have too much health left). Aside from that, they can also run and shoulderblock. If it's a finishing blow, they'll get goat horns for a second to ram enemies off the screen. They can pick them up and throw (or have his partner ram the enemy from out his hands) them, and best of all to me is the field goal kick you can do to enemies with enhanced feet while enemies are down. Oh yeah, and they can jump like any toad could. With some enemies, there are slight variations. For example, you pound the rats into the ground, and super-uppercut small flying drones.

OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 10!

There are tons of moves for a Nintendo game, the characters move very and the control is almost perfect (and is perfect concerning jumping). You can blame your many lives lost on anything but bad control. On another note, I believe that this was the very first game with juggling combos. You can kick enemies while they're down or ram them while they're tossed in the air. The gameplay is so fun that we'd actually found ourselves doing games just to fight each other (hey, it was before SF2 came out on a home system)!

DESIGN: 10+!

The level design is arcade quality! The game never really has filler and you never fight the same enemies or go through the same obstacles too many times. There are only two levels that are even halfway similar to each other. The first level has a flat-out brawl, on the second level you rappel on a cable while kicking birds and flytraps trying to devour you. On some levels you ride things like surfboards and speeder bikes while avoiding mines and walls. My personal favorite is the ''Rat Race'' where you race an evil rat (duh) down many floors of a ship to diffuse a bomb before before the rat can set it off and blow you up (and somehow not himself). The only flaw with the level design is that I would've wished for more than just a couple of flat-out brawling levels. Than again, I can get that on the sequel (for the NES) of the arcade game (if I can ever find it again). The enemies are equally intriguing, albeit weird. You fight enemies ranging from viking pigs with axes to a giant cyborg that shoots rapid-fire lasers to rubber duckies that kill you in one headbutt! You even fight some Space Invaders! I think of this as the only EVER ''action beat-em-up'' game. Because there are fist fights, but the terrain is never flat for that long and there are platform and riding segments also.

Another highlight of the game is the dialogue. Before you start a level and after you beat one there is dialogue from Bird and the Dark Queen on the fights that are/were taking place. There are three of four for each part so it will take a while for you to hear them all. There are also some extremely amusing comments from professor Bird whenever you lose a continue. My brothers and I were be in stitches the first time we saw some of them (especially, ''I haven't seen such a disgraceful failure since last time you failed!'').

GRAPHICS: 10!

The graphics are quite impressive for an NES game. For a (mostly) non-2D game, the different levels and heights of items are done quite well. Especially the rocks in the background. The patterns on the walls are also interesting at times. The graphics are also very colorful but rather umbrageous in the background and the foreground. They can really have you feeling like you're fighting on far away planets (except for the Turbo Tunnel, which looks like you're fighting in someone's intestines).

The character design is quite good too. I really like the design of the fat rat and Robo Manus. (on the intro, not the game) Rash is green with brown around the mid-front of his body (like some real toads) and Zitz is brown and grey. All three of the toads have spiked black kneepads and wristbands to make them look like they have more of an ''attitude''. Speaking of attitudes, the animation is probably the best and most humorous on the NES! I love the jaw-dropping jaw-dropping (no that was not a typing mistake) take, the amusing gasp and other things like the way the Psyko-pigs look like they're out for your head and how the bosses look like they're enjoying wasting you a lot. The movement itself is extremely smooth and there isn't a bothersome amount of slowdown.

SOUND: 9

The sounds aren't too realistic and there aren't that many, but I still like them a lot. The punching sounds go ''pheek'' and the power move sounds go ''phock''. And they're quite loud. It over-the-top sounds really compliment the over-the-top setting. There are a few more decent sounds such as ice breaking. Shame that the dying sound from spikes is the same as the dying sound of hitting a wall obstacle.

MUSIC: 9

Yet another first; this is the first console game I can think of that has a (realistic) rock-style soundtrack! And the guitars actually sound real! A good half of the music is like that, while most the other half is very serene ''cavern'' music. There are a few exceptions like the snow level, but that's quite appropriate to the stage. Overall most of the music is cool and very fitting to the action- fast or slow.

CHALLENGE: 10!/COOLNESS IN CHALLENGE: 2!

*sigh* Here's the most highlighted aspect of the game. The popular opinion is true; this game is as hard as it gets on the NES! Well, next to Ghosts N' Goblins. My brother rented this in the Fall of 91' and after the first rental, we brought it along with a Game Genie (and had a lot of fun with it) for some unlimited lives, super jump and super power codes, but we STILL couldn't finish it until about a year after we brought it in the 93' holiday season!

Anyway, there are SO many ways to croak in this game. Every level has at least three new kinds of one-hit-wonders. The riding levels are very stressful, especially the last level. Also, some of the earlier levels are far harder than some of the later ones. With a lot of the bosses, when they hit you once, they normally juggle you until you die without giving you a chance to get up! To make it worse, out of your six health points, everything except for the rats and pigs take away two health points or more with every hit (although there are flys to eat for health once in a lifetime)! And while the level design is great, there are quite a few instances where something pops up and clocks you VERY suddenly! There are also things that you couldn't possibly guess the first time (like the robots on level 9 exploding when you ram them). Sometimes it's pretty funny how hard they try to challenge you.

But none of that could stop it from being my favorite NES game and beat-em-up of all time..... However, there is one very big problem; on the 2-player mode (aside from the first two levels), if one player dies, they BOTH have to go back to the last checkpoint (which is usually a pretty long way to go between them)! Because of that, not even the most seasoned experts could finish a two-player game! No matter how good you are, you'll always make a few mistakes- and exactly what are the chances of you both getting in those perfect games (and mistakes) at the same time? Quite low. They didn't HAVE to do that. It's not on the first two levels. If only.

Last but not least, there should have been a ''two-player A'' mode where you couldn't hit each other. Some things are irresistible. Sometimes when I'd see one of my brothers (or vice versa) walking down a hill with spikes above (and a bit in front of) him, I'd think ''how cool would that look to ram him face-first into those spikes?''. I just can't resist! Sometimes that resulted in us fighting through the rest of the game!

REPLAY VALUE: 8+

The game is pretty long- about two and a half hours long to someone that can beat it. It will take a very long while to beat it, and even afterwards, it will take finishing it four or five more times to be able to beat it on any try. And that's advice for one-player games. There are maybe six people in this world that have finished this on a two-player game. But it's still fun. It's also a lot of fun just to see how fights against the other player go on each level (like snowball fights on the fourth).

OVERVIEW II

TOADOLLY AWSOME

*great and unique gameplay
*excellent, fast-paced level design
*near-perfect control
*vivid graphics
*great music
*fitting sounds
*cool characters, super powers and enemies
*amusing interface

TOADALLED

*the challenge (sudden/cheap hits and starting you back too far on two-player games)
*1 to 8? Well, that challenge flaw is VERY bad!

KEY MOMENT

The Rat Race and the few boss fights there are.

WORD TO THE WISE

This is VERY important to help beat the game; on the second level, hit the birds eight times before they fall off of the screen for a 1-UP. Even reset it if you get less than five of them. It really stocks you up for the game (at least on your first of three/five continues).

SAY WHAT?

There was a Battletoads Thanksgiving special cartoon on CBS in 1991. I'd pay good money to see that again..........

OVERALL: 9

This is a very excellent and original game, but I always just end up thinking of how much more it could've been if they just hadn't make one player go with the other. *sigh*

THE FEKKOT AWARDS

Best level design on a Nintendo game or beat-em-up, and best dialogue on a Nintendo game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/00, Updated 12/27/00